In my first post about Egypt, I noted the view articulated by Crane Brinton in The Anatomy of Revolution, that in revolutions, the members of the army and/or the police force are the ones who decide what happens. If the government loses control of its coercive forces, the revolution succeeds. So the question we, and protesters elsewhere in the Middle East, should be asking is: why did the Egyptian government lose control of its coercive forces? Why did the military decide to back the opposition?
The military had an economic stake in Mubarak’s Egypt, and the U.S. didn’t seem to make any serious threat to cut off military funding. In Foreign Affairs, Ellis Goldberg argues that the military is likely only to “shed its corrupt civilians, leaving its military component as the only player left standing,” offering nominal democratic reforms that allow the military to retain substantial control. But Goldberg doesn’t address why the military decided that this route would be safer than backing Mubarak.
The New York Times and Pro Publica have reported on the tensions in Egypt’s military, between middle-level officers and Field Marshal Mohamed Tantawi (Egypt’s defense minister, who has apparently been opposed to reforms and is now essentially in charge of the country, and who lower-level officers dubbed ‘Mubarak’s poodle’), but neither article addresses how the military made its decision. Though the Times article does note the view of Ragui Assaad, an Egyptian professor at the University of Minnesota, who said that the military is “a rational, calculating institution” and “[t]he moment they see it is not in their interest to retain [Mubarak], they will usher him out.” We should look at the military in this way. But if we do, how can we explain the choice the military made?
